


La Mélodie Dans Mon Cœur

by Snugglebuttkitten



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien and Marinette are best friends, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Kwamis, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, I Still Believe AU, Love at First Sight, Major Illness, Minor Adrienette - Freeform, Multi, One-sided Adrienette, Reverse Crush (Miraculous Ladybug), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unrequited Love, best friends au, kind of, lukanette endgame, roommate au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23325247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snugglebuttkitten/pseuds/Snugglebuttkitten
Summary: Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng have been best friends since before anyone can remember. Where one went, the other was sure to follow. No one is surprised when they decide to attend the same University, or that they decide to save costs by living together. And Adrien is certain that with their new living situation, coupled with a bit of effort on his part, Marinette might finally fall as madly in love with him as he has always been with her.Enter Luka Couffaine. Handsome, suave, and with a hint of bad boy charm, Marinette can't help but be drawn in by the blue-haired boy. And he seems just as entranced as her. It doesn't help that Adrien can't help but like Luka. He's a good guy. But he has been waiting on Marinette for most of his life and he isn't about to let his new friend swoop in and sweep her off her feet.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Chloé Bourgeois/Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58





	La Mélodie Dans Mon Cœur

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: The University depicted here exists, but it is a business school IRL. For the purpose of this RP and because I really want them to live in this town, the La Rochelle University depicted here will be an ART school
> 
> NOTE 2: The characters portrayed didn't go to school together and are not friends prior to the start of the story. The members of Kitty Section are a few years older than Adrien and Marinette.
> 
> Me: I'm totally going to get to LYEternally soon, guys. I just gotta build back up to it ^_^
> 
> Also me: Let's start a new multi-chaptered Lukanette Fic because I can't stop cooing over the Silencer and Miracle Queen episodes. I'm sorry but the Lukanette was strong in them and is once again drawing me away from the love square. He is so romantic and his way with words? Swoon. Plus love square is super toxic and obsessive right now so... yeah. Lukanette!
> 
> Please note this isn't an Adrien Salt Fic or Adrien Angst. There is a little bit of angst here but this AU is completely separate from the events that have happened in the show. If you have seen 'I Still Believe' or know the general story, you'll get where the angst comes from.

“Are you _sure_ this is the University you want to go to?” Sabine Cheng asked for perhaps the thousandth time, wringing her hands fretfully as she watched her daughter load the last of her belongings into her Mini Cooper. The back of the car was filled to the brim, leaving little room for the two occupants who would need to make the six hour drive to their new home and school. Slamming the trunk shut, Marinette Dupain-Cheng turned to face her mother with a soft, affectionate grin. She would miss her mother, her father, the bakery. Hell, she was going to miss everything about her home and Paris. But this, leaving, it was something she had to do. As much as she loved her family, or life, it was time for this little bird to spread its wings and leave the nest.

“She’s right, you know. There are plenty of great schools in Paris that we could have gone too,” Adrien Agreste said, stepping out of the bakery. Her father was behind him, holding the door as her best friend juggled his cat’s carrier and her hamster’s travel cage. Wrinkling her nose, the eighteen-year-old stuck her tongue out at him, even as she moved to take her hamster’s carrier out of his hands. She knew from experience that holding onto his cat’s carrier was a two hand job. Even now, she could hear the cat hissing and clawing at the plastic walls in annoyance, none too thrilled by their impending trip.

“You just want to stay nearby because of all the free snacks you’ll get if you do,” she teased, flicking his nose as she moved past him to place Tikki’s carrier in the sliver of space behind her seat. Adrien would unfortunately have to keep Plagg at his feet, less the cat broke out of his carrier. It had happened before and neither wanted a repeat of that incident. “I thought you were going to sedate him, Adrien. He’s going to hurt himself if he keeps that up.”

“I _did_. He weighs like thirty pounds, they’ll take awhile to kick in,” the blond groused, moving to place his cat’s carrier gently down on the front passenger’s seat. A pitiful yowl rose from the carrier, no doubt Plagg bemoaning his abuse at the hands of his owner.

“It’s your own fault. I _warned_ you that getting a Maine Coon was a bad idea but _no_ you had to have him because he was _pretty_ ,” she scoffed, shaking her head and making her loose raven tresses bounce and sway around her pale face. Dusting off her hands as she moved back around the side of the car, she grinned brightly. “Well, that’s all of it!”

“I just don’t know why you two have to go so far,” Tom said with a pout, his wife quickly chiming in agreement.

“It’s like we’re losing both a daughter and a son at the same time,” she said sadly, no doubt trying to guilt trip the two teens. Unfortunately, it was sort of working, especially since what they said was true. Adrien wasn’t biologically theirs, but he was almost like a son to them nonetheless. He and Marinette had been inseparable since they were babies, the friendship between their mother’s bringing them together for frequent playdates. Even after Emilie Agreste died, the playdates had continued. If anything, they got more frequent. Gabriel Agreste hadn’t been winning any ‘father of the year’ rewards before, but with the loss of his wife he became even more distanced from his only son. Before long, he started dropping Adrien off for weekends instead of just the afternoon, and then the weekends extended until the Dupain-Chengs' eventually just turned their guest bedroom into his room. By the time he was twelve, Adrien was practically living with them full-time. He still did photoshoots, cologne commercials, the occasional interview, but if he wasn’t being presented as the face of the brand, his father wanted nothing to do with him. Marinette and her family had spent countless hours comforting and validating the boy, assuring him that he was loved, wanted, cared for and it had made them all hate Gabriel Agreste while simultaneously making them love Adrien just a little bit more.

Adrien eventually got emancipated at sixteen, cutting off all contact with his father and the company, and he had been living with the Dupain-Chengs ever since. He was as much a part of the family as she was at this point and none of them could imagine their lives without his bright grins, quick wit, and even his god awful puns. So she did understand where her parents were coming from, for the most part, but that didn’t change the fact that _this_ school was perfect. _La Rochelle Universite_ might not have the best fashion program in France, but it was within the top five and had the added bonus of being located in a quaint little seaport town on the Bay of Biscay. It was a place where she could stretch out her wings and be herself, where Adrien could be himself. A place they didn’t have to be the daughter of famous bakers or the emancipated son of a fashion icon. Plus, as much as she loved her parents, what eighteen-year-old didn’t want to get away from the rentals for a few years?

“Maman, Papa, relax. We’re only a six hour drive away,” she pointed out, shaking her head in exasperation as she stepped up to stand beside Adrien. His arm immediately fell over her shoulder, a comforting and familiar weight.

“Yea, and we’ll come visit on the occasional weekend, and on school breaks,” Adrien confirmed, grinning.

“We’ll be okay,” Marinette added.

“I’ll watch out for her, Mama, Papa,” Adrien assured. Sabine tutted and finally stepped forward. For such a small woman, her hug was bone crushing as she enveloped them both. Tom was quick to get in on the action, wrapping his arms around all three of them with ease.

“You’ll look out for each other,” the aging Chinese woman insisted, giving them an extra squeeze. 

“We will, Mom,” the pair chorused, sharing an amused glance over Sabine’s head. Eventually they were released, Plagg’s increasingly plaintive meows telling them that it was well past time to get going. It was early morning, barely seven, but they were hoping to beat traffic. Standing by the driver’s side, Marinette took a moment to look up at her home with a feeling of nostalgia. She had lived above the bakery since the day her parents brought her home from the hospital. She had laughed, shed tears, thrown tantrums. She had learned to read, write, and draw. To bake, to sew, to kick her father’s butt in video games, all under this roof. Tere had been birthday parties, holiday celebrations, sleepovers. She had her first kiss with her first boyfriend on her terrace, had her first breakup there too. So many memories in one place, and she was leaving it all behind.

“Hey,” Adrien said from across the car. She met his eyes to find him smiling at her in that soft, understanding way of his, the smile he gave her when it was just the two of him, the one that said he knew exactly what was going on in her mind because he felt it too. The fear of the unknown was a powerful thing, but so too was their excitement over this new adventure. “We’ll be okay, Mare. Remember, it’s you and me against the world,” he said, reaching across the roof of the car to hold out his fist.

Smiling, Marinette met him halfway to tap her own fist against his. “Always,” she agreed, looking back at their home once more before opening her car door and sliding inside. Adrien joined her less than a second later, hand briefly squeezing her knee in a show of solidarity and comfort before she started the car and pulled away from the bakery.

Luka Couffaine breathed a world-weary sigh as he stepped into the two bedroom apartment that he shared with his sister, Juleka, and her girlfriend, Rose Lavillant. Touring around Europe and the United Kingdom with Rock Legend Jagged Stone had been an incredible experience. He had learned so much, gotten in quite a bit of practice, and his band’s following had almost quadrupled since they had left home at the start of summer. Kitty Section was more popular than it had ever been before, and he owed it all to the Rock God who had taken him and his friends under his wing. Still, all that travel had taken its toll and the twenty-two -year-old felt like he could sleep for an entire week.

“It is so good to be home,” Rose said, breezing through the front door with a relieved grin on her face, kicking off her shoes and dropping her duffle bag unceremoniously beside his in the entryway, before plopping down on the opposite end of the overstuffed sectional that dominated their living room. She sneezed as a bit of dust rose from the couch around her. They would definitely need to clean and air out the apartment, but that could wait. The door opened and shut one last time, admitting his sister Juleka. She looked almost as tired as he did, moving to collapse her tall frame on the couch without a word and laying her head in her girlfriend’s lap.

“I hurt,” Juleka moaned piteously, prompting Rose to begin running her hands lightly through her long, purple-tipped hair. “Why did we ever think that tour was going to be easy?”

“Because we’re young and inexperienced and it was our first tour,” Luka offered, stretching his long legs out to prop them up on the coffee table. Normally, Rose would immediately chastise him for that. Today he barely received a half-hearted glare.

“Well, I call the shower first,” Rose said, eyelids drooping over her clear blue irises. “I’m pretty sure there are several layers of grime caked on me from the return trip.”

“I’ll join you,” Juleka said, too tired to even attempt to make the offer sound as sultry as she might normally do, which Luka was grateful for. He loved his sister and Rose, he knew they were perfect together, but he also hated being around them when they started flirting.

“Nuh-uh, if you’re taking one together then I’m going first. You two will take too long,” he intoned, earning a weak scowl from his sister. Rose more or less looked like she was stuck between agreeing with him and arguing that she had called dibs first. In the end, they did allow Luka to take his shower first and by the time he stepped out of the spray, he felt rather rejuvenated. Enough so that he started to clean up and air out the apartment while the girl’s took their own shower. They had left it pretty orderly before leaving, but a fine layer of dust covered every surface and there was mail to sort and plants to hopefully revive. Juleka and Rose eventually joined them and by the time it was nearing dinner time, they had successfully managed to put the apartment back to rights.

Flopping onto the couch once more, Luka released a weary sigh but he was proud of what they had accomplished. Now, instead of cleaning, they could spend the next few days relaxing and gathering any supplies they needed before classes started up in a week. They all attended La Rochelle Universite. Luka was entering his final year as a music major. Juleka and Rose were both second years, with Juleka majoring in fashion and Rose in Photography. He was both looking forward to going back, and dreading it. He loved the school but the workload was going to be intense this year as he worked towards the showcase they put on for the graduating class at the end of the school year, on top of his normal finals and assignments. Worth it, though. By this time next year, he would be leaving school and this apartment behind to travel full time with Jagged Stone. He was more than a little excited.

Eventually, their relaxation was interrupted by the growling of their stomachs. Luka, being the one with the bike, was voted to go pick up food so he got dressed and left the apartment, intent on stopping by the grocery store to stock their fridge and their favorite chinese restaurant for tonight's dinner. As he passed, he noted with some level of interest that the door next to theirs was slightly cracked open and there were voices floating from within. It had stood empty for months. The previous tenants had been an older couple, and moving out so close to the end of the school year, no one had rented the apartment considering most students were leaving for summer holidays soon. With school about to start up, it would seem the apartment had finally been filled once more. He would have to remember to go introduce himself and apologize for any noise Kitty Section might make during practice days. The previous tenants had been practically deaf and most of the building's occupants were college students who understood, and also who knew him and his band members, so they didn’t mind the noise. Hopefully the new tenants would be just as understanding.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
